One of the first times Zuckerberg and I got together, in 2005 or
2006, he stopped me in the middle of conversation and asked:
“What did Netscape do?” And I said, “What do you mean,
what did Netscape do?” And he was like, “Dude, I was in junior
high. I wasn’t paying attention.”

For all you youngsters: Andreessen invented the first graphical
Web browser. His invention, Mosaic, was commercialized as
Netscape Navigator. The company had a spectacular IPO in 1995,
making Andreessen a very wealthy young man, landing him on the
cover of Time Magazine, and kicking off the dot-com boom.

Andreessen's point in telling the story is that a lot of older
folks were scarred from the dot-com collapse in the early 2000s.
It took younger entrepreneurs like Zuckerberg and Andrew
Mason of Groupon,
who didn't have those fears, to build the new generation of
successful Internet companies.

Andreessen's VC firm is an investor in Facebook,
and he sits on the board of directors.